More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
we might say, is not so much to know the unknown as to know the knower.
we might say, is not so much to know the unknown as to know the knower.
there is more to life than the everyday experience of our senses.
there is more to life than the everyday experience of our senses.
Bhagavad Gita, gives us a map and guidebook. It gives a systematic overview of the territory, shows various approaches to the summit with their benefits and pitfalls, offers recommendations, tells us what to pack and what to leave behind. More than either of the others, it gives the sense of a personal guide. It asks and answers the questions that you or I might ask – questions not about philosophy or mysticism, but about how to live effectively in a world of challenge and change. Of these three, it is the Gita that has been my own personal guidebook, just as it was Mahatma Gandhi’s.
Bhagavad Gita, gives us a map and guidebook. It gives a systematic overview of the territory, shows various approaches to the summit with their benefits and pitfalls, offers recommendations, tells us what to pack and what to leave behind. More than either of the others, it gives the sense of a personal guide. It asks and answers the questions that you or I might ask – questions not about philosophy or mysticism, but about how to live effectively in a world of challenge and change. Of these three, it is the Gita that has been my own personal guidebook, just as it was Mahatma Gandhi’s.
These three texts are very personal records of a landscape that is both real and universal. Their voices, passionately human, speak directly to you and me. They describe the topography of consciousness itself,
These three texts are very personal records of a landscape that is both real and universal. Their voices, passionately human, speak directly to you and me. They describe the topography of consciousness itself,
This wider field of consciousness is our native land. We are not cabin-dwellers, born to a life cramped and confined; we are meant to explore, to seek, to push the limits of our potential as human beings. The world of the senses is just a base camp: we are meant to be as much at home in consciousness as in the world of physical reality.
This wider field of consciousness is our native land. We are not cabin-dwellers, born to a life cramped and confined; we are meant to explore, to seek, to push the limits of our potential as human beings. The world of the senses is just a base camp: we are meant to be as much at home in consciousness as in the world of physical reality.
If all of the New Testament had been lost, it has been said, and only the Sermon on the Mount had managed to survive these two thousand years of history, we would still have all that is necessary for following the teachings of Jesus the Christ.
If all of the New Testament had been lost, it has been said, and only the Sermon on the Mount had managed to survive these two thousand years of history, we would still have all that is necessary for following the teachings of Jesus the Christ.
if everything else were lost, we would need nothing more than the Dhammapada to follow the way of the Buddha.
if everything else were lost, we would need nothing more than the Dhammapada to follow the way of the Buddha.
But for those who would follow it to the end, the Dhammapada is a sure guide to nothing less than the highest goal life can offer: Self-realization.
But for those who would follow it to the end, the Dhammapada is a sure guide to nothing less than the highest goal life can offer: Self-realization.
As a result, in even the earliest of the Indian scriptures – the Rig Veda, whose oldest hymns go back at least to 1500 B.C. – we find Aryan nature-gods integrated with the loftiest conceptions of mysticism. There
As a result, in even the earliest of the Indian scriptures – the Rig Veda, whose oldest hymns go back at least to 1500 B.C. – we find Aryan nature-gods integrated with the loftiest conceptions of mysticism. There
Oral records of their discoveries began to be collected around 1000 B.C. or even earlier, in fragments called the Upanishads. Individualistic in their expression, yet completely universal, these ecstatic documents belong to no particular religion but to all mankind. They are not systematic philosophy; they are not philosophy at all. Each Upanishad contains the record of a darshana: literally something seen, a view not of the world of everyday experience but of the deep, still realms beneath the sense-world, accessible in deep meditation:
Oral records of their discoveries began to be collected around 1000 B.C. or even earlier, in fragments called the Upanishads. Individualistic in their expression, yet completely universal, these ecstatic documents belong to no particular religion but to all mankind. They are not systematic philosophy; they are not philosophy at all. Each Upanishad contains the record of a darshana: literally something seen, a view not of the world of everyday experience but of the deep, still realms beneath the sense-world, accessible in deep meditation:
Far from deprecating physical existence, they teach that Self-realization means health, vitality, long life, and a harmonious balance of inward and outward activity.
Far from deprecating physical existence, they teach that Self-realization means health, vitality, long life, and a harmonious balance of inward and outward activity.
The method these sages followed in their pursuit of truth was called brahmavidya, the “supreme science,” a discipline in which attention is focused intensely on the contents of consciousness. In practice this means meditation. The modern mind balks at calling meditation scientific, but in these sages’ passion for truth, in their search for reality as something which is the same under all conditions and from all points of view, in their insistence on direct observation and systematic empirical method, we find the essence of the scientific spirit. It is not improper to call brahmavidya a series
...more
The method these sages followed in their pursuit of truth was called brahmavidya, the “supreme science,” a discipline in which attention is focused intensely on the contents of consciousness. In practice this means meditation. The modern mind balks at calling meditation scientific, but in these sages’ passion for truth, in their search for reality as something which is the same under all conditions and from all points of view, in their insistence on direct observation and systematic empirical method, we find the essence of the scientific spirit. It is not improper to call brahmavidya a series
...more
They sought invariants in the contents of consciousness and discarded everything impermanent as ultimately unreal, in the way that the sensations of a dream are seen to be unreal when one awakens.
They sought invariants in the contents of consciousness and discarded everything impermanent as ultimately unreal, in the way that the sensations of a dream are seen to be unreal when one awakens.
They peeled away personality like an onion, layer by layer, and found nothing permanent in the mass of perceptions, thoughts, emotions, drives, and memories that we call “I.” Yet when everything individual was stripped away, an intense awareness remained: consciousness itself. The sages called this ultimate ground of personality atman, the Self.
They peeled away personality like an onion, layer by layer, and found nothing permanent in the mass of perceptions, thoughts, emotions, drives, and memories that we call “I.” Yet when everything individual was stripped away, an intense awareness remained: consciousness itself. The sages called this ultimate ground of personality atman, the Self.
In a similar insight, Vedic India conceived of the natural world – not only physical phenomena but human action and thought – as uniformly governed by universal law.
In a similar insight, Vedic India conceived of the natural world – not only physical phenomena but human action and thought – as uniformly governed by universal law.
In its broadest application, dharma expresses the central law of life, that all things and events are part of an indivisible whole.
In its broadest application, dharma expresses the central law of life, that all things and events are part of an indivisible whole.
Probably no word is richer in connotations. In the sphere of human activity, dharma is behavior that is in harmony with this unity. Sometimes it is justice, righteousness, or fairness; sometimes simply duty, the obligations of religion or society. It also means being true to what is essential in the human being: nobility, honor, forgiveness, truthfulness, loyalty, compassion. An ancient saying declares that ahimsa paramo dharma: the essence of dharma, the highest law of life, is to do no harm to any living creature.
Probably no word is richer in connotations. In the sphere of human activity, dharma is behavior that is in harmony with this unity. Sometimes it is justice, righteousness, or fairness; sometimes simply duty, the obligations of religion or society. It also means being true to what is essential in the human being: nobility, honor, forgiveness, truthfulness, loyalty, compassion. An ancient saying declares that ahimsa paramo dharma: the essence of dharma, the highest law of life, is to do no harm to any living creature.
Karma means something done, whether as cause or effect. Actions in harmony with dharma bring good karma and add to health and happiness. Selfish actions, at odds with the rest of life, bring unfavorable karma and pain.
Karma means something done, whether as cause or effect. Actions in harmony with dharma bring good karma and add to health and happiness. Selfish actions, at odds with the rest of life, bring unfavorable karma and pain.
In this view, no divine agency is needed to punish or reward us; we punish and reward ourselves. This was not regarded as a tenet of religion but as a law of nature, as universal as the law of gravity. No one has stated it more clearly than St. Paul: “As you sow, so shall you reap. With whatever measure you mete out to others, with the same measure it shall be meted out to you.”
In this view, no divine agency is needed to punish or reward us; we punish and reward ourselves. This was not regarded as a tenet of religion but as a law of nature, as universal as the law of gravity. No one has stated it more clearly than St. Paul: “As you sow, so shall you reap. With whatever measure you mete out to others, with the same measure it shall be meted out to you.”
The sages of the Upanishads would find this an entirely acceptable way of describing both their idea of personality and the goal of life: moksha, freedom from the delusion of separateness; yoga, complete integration of consciousness; nirvana, the extinction of the sense of a separate ego. This state is not the extinction of personality but its fulfillment, and it is not achieved after death but in the midst of life.
The sages of the Upanishads would find this an entirely acceptable way of describing both their idea of personality and the goal of life: moksha, freedom from the delusion of separateness; yoga, complete integration of consciousness; nirvana, the extinction of the sense of a separate ego. This state is not the extinction of personality but its fulfillment, and it is not achieved after death but in the midst of life.
Mara is Death and every selfish passion that ties us to a mortal body.
In this talk we see the Buddha as physician to the world, the relentlessly clear-seeing healer whose love embraces all creatures. In the Four Noble Truths, he gives his clinical observations on the human condition, then his diagnosis, then the prognosis, and finally the cure. “The First Truth, brothers, is the fact of suffering. All desire happiness, sukha: what is good, pleasant, right, permanent, joyful, harmonious, satisfying, at ease. Yet all find that life brings duhkha, just the opposite: frustration, dissatisfaction, incompleteness, suffering, sorrow. Life is change, and change can
...more
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
According to ancient Indian custom, those who renounce the world die to their past and become a new person altogether, never to go home again. Of Siddhartha’s life in the forest, little more than rumor could have reached his family’s ears. For seven years Yashodhara mourned without hope, while the infant that Siddhartha had left in her arms grew straight and tall.
“Father, which is the greater ruler: he who rules a small kingdom through power, or he who rules the whole world through love? Your son, who renounced a crown, has conquered all, for he has conquered an enemy to whom all bow. You wished for a son to give you security in your old age, but what son can guarantee security from changes of fortune, from illness, from age itself, from death? I have brought you instead a treasure no other can offer: the dharma, an island in an uncertain world, a lamp in darkness, a sure path to a realm beyond sorrow.”
All the disciplines of the Eightfold Path, including meditation, can be followed by householders if they do their best to give up selfish attachment.
Then he stopped, for the music brought memories he was afraid to awaken. “It has to be tuned just right to make music,” he said abruptly, handing the vina back to the Buddha. “Neither too tight nor too loose. Just right.” “Sona,” the Buddha replied, “it is the same for those who seek nirvana. Don’t let yourself be slack, but don’t stretch yourself to breaking either. The middle course, lying between too much and too little, is the way of my Eightfold Path.”
“Similarly, Malunkyaputra, I do not teach whether the world is eternal or not eternal; whether it is finite or infinite; whether the soul and the body are the same or different; whether a person who has attained nirvana exists after death or does not, or whether perhaps he both exists and does not exist, or neither exists nor does not. I teach how to remove the arrow: the truth of suffering, its origin, its end, and the Noble Eightfold Path.”
“How your face and skin shine, Blessed One! The gold of their radiance dulls even the saffron of this robe.” “There are two occasions when a Buddha’s face and skin shine so,” replied the Buddha gently: “when he first enters nirvana, and when he is about to enter nirvana for the last time.”
In the Vinaya Pitaka (III.4) the Buddha left a concise map of his journey to nirvana – a description of the course of his meditation that night, couched in the kind of language a brilliant clinician might use in the lecture hall.
Scholars sometimes treat passage through the four dhyanas as a peculiarly Buddhist experience, but the Buddha’s description tallies not only with Hindu authorities like Patanjali but also with Western mystics like John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Augustine, and Meister Eckhart. What the Buddha is giving us is something of universal application: a precise account of levels of awareness beneath the everyday waking state.
